David's First Kinetic Sculpture

David and I collected lots of video footage of his early work while preparing for his TEDx talk. We promised to start sharing some of it on the blog and this post is a first in that series.  It makes all the sense to start at the beginning.  

B.W. Cornwallis is David's very first wall-mounted kinetic sculpture. It was designed and built back in 1975. David was trying to answer the question that people always asked of his human-powered gadget Xylo. "But can you make it run longer?"

His first experiment to do so had been a behemoth of a design called Albert. Albert was a great learning exercise, and it worked, but it was huge, free-standing and lacked grace.  The design break-through came when David started using the wall for support and B.W. is the first of a long series of wall-mounted, weight driven, kinetic sculptures.

B. W. is very much a sculpture of a mechanism, as were all of David's first experiments.  He worked to develop imaginative designs using simplified escapement theory. Very basically, a falling weight attached to a string provides energy to the sculpture while the sculpture itself regulates the fall of the weight.  

The rolling wheel shifts the balance of the mechanism, releasing the catch on the cog. The weight starts to fall, this turns the cog causing the cog to change angle of the ramp mechanism the rolling wheel is on. The mechanism then catches the cog, preventing further fall of the weight. The wheel continues rolling shifting balance again and the cycle repeats. This basic concept powers all of David's weight and spring driven sculptures. It is easier to see in B.W.  

B. W Cornwallis was first shown at a small Connecticut craft fair and sold almost immediately, along with Inventor Released and Serendipity. David had made one of each (he really didn't expect that they would sell!) and he went back to his workshop to build additional copies. He couldn't get B. W. to work again.  He quickly learned to always keep a working prototype of all his work to be able to refer back to it. 

B.W. was not a very reliable design and David quickly moved on to better concepts. The next year, the original B.W. buyers returned and said it no longer worked. David offered a trade for any new designs because he really wanted his first design back. We still have the original B.W. Cornwallis and unpacked it after 35 years to video tape it. David set it up and with a minimum of tweaking, he got it working again for this video.

It was excitement all over again. It worked! It is a great piece of history!

Inspiring Art: MÖBIUS from Eness

There are many sources of inspiration within the world of art. Here is an interesting use of sculpture and video to present motion and to capture people's interaction with the sculpture.

MÖBIUS from ENESS on Vimeo.

This project was comissioned by Federation Square in Melbourne. The sculpture consists of twenty-one large triangles. According to it's creators, 

"MÖBIUS is a sculpture that can be configured into many cyclical patterns and behave as though it is eating itself, whilst sinking into the ground. The result is an optical illusion and a time-lapse of people interacting with the
sculpture and moving through Melbourne's landmark location throughout the day."

The animation of MÖBIUS took place over two weeks on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday between the May 6th and 20th 2011. Here is the video of the making of the animation video. The process is quite fascinating. 

Making of MÖBIUS from ENESS on Vimeo.

The still pictures of the MÖBIUS are also quite striking with their geometric forms and creation of interesting spaces. 

TEDxBGSU • Physics + Art = Kinetic Sculpture

We are home from our first TEDx experience and the journey, from start to finish, has been memorable.  

First, about the actual day. No doubt about it. It was intense and will be one of those experiences that continues to percolate as I think about the people I met and the ideas discussed. All the talks were video taped including mine and should be available through the TEDx site in about three weeks. I will keep you posted and provide a direct link when they are put up. This particular TEDx was remarkable in that it was organized by five BGSU students. That lent the excitement of youth to the entire production. The theme was Passion, Inspiration, Action!

My talk, Physics + Art = Kinetic Sculpture, was about life's nudges with examples of the nudges that moved me from a career path directed toward the sciences to one in the arts. I continued exploring other nudges that led to inspiration, growth and change in my work.

My TEDx Talk went well, at least that's what Marji and others tell me. Luckily I'd put in a lot of time rehearsing. In truth, I have little memory of it and I, like you, am awaiting the video release to see what I actually said! I feel I skipped parts and rearranged the order on the fly. We'll see!

It was certainly a rush to see some of my older work on the big screen! 

The invitation to speak set off a review and reflection starting from the very beginning of this unexpected (and unplanned) career.  I must say that this reflection has been very valuable. Many parts of the history were never recorded or chronicled have been so now and will provide content for many a blog post to come. I hope that this discussion can provide inspiration to others to take the chance, follow the nudges and persue their dreams. 

So, stay tuned. I'll share the TEDx video.  I now have lots of great video and photos of sculptures long buried in the past thanks to Marji's efforts and we'll be showing and talking about them in future posts.  

Kinetic Sculpture AT HubSpot • Biz Talk

Friday, 9/9/11, David and I traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts because David had been invited to give a talk as part of the Hubspot Biz Talk series. He spoke to a group of employees about the early years of Wood That Works and developing a kinetic sculpture business by following the nudges.  

 Karen Rubin (our daughter!) with David at Hubspot

David was pleased to be doing this because his public speaking experience since grade school has been limited to weddings and he has never used a remote device with a presentation system. In addition to sharing his history with Hubspot he was gaining much needed experience for his TEDx talk next week. 

The presentation went well, David received great questions from the group that listened and much appreciated input on presentation ideas.  We also stayed for the Hubspot live web podcost of Marketing Update starring @karinrubin and @mvolpe.

 Karen Rubin with Mike Volpe recording "Marketing Update" at Hubspot

Hubspot is a great company and we appreciate their warm welcome and great advice! Thanks folks!

Winding and Testing Kinetic Sculptures

David finished his first production run of North Star last week as we were dealing with the lack of power in the Hurricane Irene aftermath. Timing worked out because David was up to final assembly and testing, neither of which requires much electricity.

David is going to have to adjust his schedule when working on sculptures like North Star. It has an incredible runtime of over 40 hours on a single winding. He has always tried to get each sculpture to finish two complete windings in the testing cycle. North Star remarkably just takes too long!  

In the early days of Wood That Works David often heard the question, "Can you make it run longer?" I don't expect many will ask that now.

North Star has mesmerizing optical patterns. Two of the visual phases are shown above. You can view a video of it in motion here.